Lithium-Ion Supply Delays Arrival Of Volkswagen Blue-E-Motion

Electric cars are coming; in fact, it seems like most major manufacturers either has a vehicle coming to market soon or has one in plan. Volkswagen is one of the manufacturers that have a car that is pretty much ready to go to market. However, according Car and Drive, the Golf “blue-emotion” won’t be coming to market until 2013. As you can imagine, this put VW at a disadvantage in the market compared to Nissan or even Ford (they plan to bring their electric car out in 2012). So why the estimated release in the year 2013? A shortage of lithium-ion batteries.

The inadequate supply of batteries from the companies usual suppliers has lead Volkswagen to start looking else where, including: Sanyo, Toshiba and Chinese car and battery manufacturer BYD. Our best guess is that the company has yet to secure what they would deem an adequate supply for their e-Golf. It isn’t a small order with the e-Golf carrying 180 lithium-ion cells in 30 separate units. This setup brings the total battery weight right around 690 pounds. The good news is that due to lightened doors and other strategic parts, the car e-Golf only ends up being about 450 pounds heaver than the regular VW Golf TDI.

The VW Golf “blue-e-motion” will be competitive with vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and the MINI E. The car will have three dynamic modes: Normal, Range + and Comfort +. Normal mode will deliver 87 horsepower, while Range + will reduce power to 67 horsepower. Switching to Comfort + will give the driver the full 114 horsepower and VW claims it will propel the e-Golf from 0-62 in 11.8 seconds. Top speed in Comfort + mode is 87 mph, so you probably won’t see to many of these racing along the Autobahn. Price? Expect the e-Golf to lighten your wallet by about $30K before any tax credits.